JULIO ROMERO DE TORRES, 1913 - Venus of Poetry / oil on canvas, 93.2 x 154.0 cm
ХУЛИО РОМЕРО ДЕ ТОРРЕС - Венера поэзии
☆
Location: Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain
Sources: bilbaomuseoa.eus/en/artworks/venus-of-poetry/
www.flickr.com/photos/140907479@N08/49436764497/in/datepo...
www.flickr.com/photos/140907479@N08/49436070193/in/datepo...
Painted in 1913 in Madrid, a city in which the artist enjoyed the friendship and admiration of the intelligentsia of the period, Venus of Poetry has been said to depict the famous actress and performer of variety songs Raquel Meller, personified here as the goddess of love and beauty in the company of the Guatemalan diplomat and writer Enrique Gómez Carrillo, who would later become her husband. Inspired by Titian's Venus and the Lute Player, the canvas is structured in two clearly divided sections. In the foreground, the recumbent woman beholds the spectator as she sensuously places a blond lace mantilla over her head. In the centre of the composition, a rose symbolises beauty and passion. The Door of the Bridge, built in the Renaissance, can be discerned in the realm of fantasy depicted in the background, behind which the river Guadalquivir and the city of Cordova appear. In contrast with his usual female models, Romero de Torres grants this Venus a timeless Symbolist air that combines reality and idealism to create an archetypal sensuous woman. As well as representing the folkloric and clichéd Spain embodied in the legendary "mujer morena" (dark-haired woman), Julio Romero de Torres' work involves a creative and highly complex modernism in which different aesthetic trends and pictorial traditions converge. His technically academic works produced in an Art Nouveau and Symbolist style made Romero de Torres one of the most popular and distinguished painters of his time.
JULIO ROMERO DE TORRES, 1913 - Venus of Poetry / oil on canvas, 93.2 x 154.0 cm
ХУЛИО РОМЕРО ДЕ ТОРРЕС - Венера поэзии
☆
Location: Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain
Sources: bilbaomuseoa.eus/en/artworks/venus-of-poetry/
www.flickr.com/photos/140907479@N08/49436764497/in/datepo...
www.flickr.com/photos/140907479@N08/49436070193/in/datepo...
Painted in 1913 in Madrid, a city in which the artist enjoyed the friendship and admiration of the intelligentsia of the period, Venus of Poetry has been said to depict the famous actress and performer of variety songs Raquel Meller, personified here as the goddess of love and beauty in the company of the Guatemalan diplomat and writer Enrique Gómez Carrillo, who would later become her husband. Inspired by Titian's Venus and the Lute Player, the canvas is structured in two clearly divided sections. In the foreground, the recumbent woman beholds the spectator as she sensuously places a blond lace mantilla over her head. In the centre of the composition, a rose symbolises beauty and passion. The Door of the Bridge, built in the Renaissance, can be discerned in the realm of fantasy depicted in the background, behind which the river Guadalquivir and the city of Cordova appear. In contrast with his usual female models, Romero de Torres grants this Venus a timeless Symbolist air that combines reality and idealism to create an archetypal sensuous woman. As well as representing the folkloric and clichéd Spain embodied in the legendary "mujer morena" (dark-haired woman), Julio Romero de Torres' work involves a creative and highly complex modernism in which different aesthetic trends and pictorial traditions converge. His technically academic works produced in an Art Nouveau and Symbolist style made Romero de Torres one of the most popular and distinguished painters of his time.